Colorado Representative Diana DeGette

“What’s the efficacy of banning these magazine clips? I will tell you, these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now, they’re going to shoot them” says Rep DeGette. According to her, “the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will be shot and there won’t be any more available.”

These people shouldn’t be allowed to vote, let alone be elected to office.

DeGette is the congress critter for Denver and is, yes, quite to the left. Anyone elected by Denver would be. Colorado is sliding farther to the left in recent years, mostly because of the number of Californians who have gone there seeking refuge and then continued the same voting patterns.

Full disclosure, DeGette’s sister, the reporter, was a friend of sorts and, yes, it does run in the family. This was during a time in my life when I met a lot of Democrats – mostly by running against them – and found that I could despise someone’s politics and still like the person.

It’s stories like this that make me glad I no longer live in Colorado. After 26 years, my wife and I moved to one of the reddest states last year. The Californication of Colorado is nearly complete. Meanwhile, life here is good.

Honestly, that sounds like something you’d hear in a Youtube video of a 4-year old trying to explain how Superman’s powers work. If you know what gun terms mean, what she said sounds like:

“What’s the efficacy of banning truck bicycles? I will tell you, these are airplanes, they’re passengers. The number of big airplanes will decrease over time because all the passengers will disembark and then there won’t be any more passengers.”

Words: Learn what they mean so you can use them better than a four-year old.

“The Congresswoman has been working on a high-capacity assault magazine ban for years, and has been deeply involved in the issue; she simply misspoke in referring to ‘magazines’ when she should have referred to ‘clips,’ which cannot be reused because they don’t have a feeding mechanism,” Johnson said.”

George,
I’m in the same boat as you. I sure was a sucker when I bought those empty stripper clips at gun shows for my Springfield ’03 rifle and for my evil AR-15 “high-capacity assault magazines.” I should have known something was wrong when there were no cartridges in the clips and the salesman laughed while counting my money. Woe is me!

I understand that people have strong feelings about this issue. But WHY is it that this kind of rabid hate, without any proper knowledge of the subject, is seen SO often on the Left? I tried, I honestly tried, to think of a reverse situation, where the Right is THAT ignorant of the facts, and I can’t think of one.

People with her kind of power and so little knowledge, limited as her power is as a Congress-PERSON with just a single vote, is some scary crap to me. She can and has moved some people’s minds with her idiot statements.

Persistent stupidity in one’s enemies can be useful. Can we get DeGette and company to write a bill banning ammunition clips but not magazines holding more than 10 rounds, and find a few Republicans who are just courageous enough to defy the NRA by crossing the aisle and voting for (only) that bill?

Then make sure the NRA gives those Republicans an A+ rating next election cycle, of course.

As she said it, the statement is of course nonsense. However, there is a (microscopic) grain of truth in it because gun magazines have (admittedly very simple) mechanical devices in them; these will eventually wear out or break. Accidental damage, corrosion and so on to the body of the magazine itself are also a possible factor.

As an aside, why is it that frothing-at-the-mouth ultra-right-wingers in the USA prattle on about “Reds” referring to Communists yet Republican-controlled areas are referred to as red? ?)

Fletcher,
You are correct, parts of a typical gun magazine will eventually wear, or corrode, and affect function. That may take a very long time, however, depending on usage, cleaning, and maintenance by the owner.

So, are you suggesting replacement “high-capacity” magazine springs and followers be banned? What’s the difference between a follower for a 10-round or 30-round AR-15 magazine? Or between a follower for a 10-round or 12-round .40 caliber magazine for a Sig-Sauer P-229? Are you suggesting all spring wire of certain diameters and mechanical properties be banned in the US, so no one can make their own replacement springs for high-capacity Glock, AR, AK, or Sig-Sauer magazines? I’m sure the gun-haters would love to impose manufacturing, importation, and sales restrictions on certain types of followers and springs (and spring wire). However, writing an effective law for the above, and its enforcement, would be difficult if not impossible.

Such a law would be as big a joke as the about-to-be approved law in Connecticut that says currently-owned magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds can be retained by the owners, but owners may legally load them with only 10 rounds outside their property or a gun range. I am sure all persons who commit crimes using “high-capacity” magazines will follow that law…NOT.

I’m not suggesting anything at all; merely an observation. In any case, making one’s own new springs (or even entire new magazines; not impossible especially with 3D printing) requires skills that not everyone has.

In answer to all your other questions, I have absolutely no idea. Other than the obvious fact that gun magazines are essentially a box with a spring at the bottom, I know nothing about them. And I don’t particularly want to know anything about them, either.

You are correct, not everyone will have the ability to make a good replacement magazine spring starting with plain wire. But people who want replacement springs, and are willing to pay the price, will find sources for them. Enforcing a replacement high-capacity magazine follower and spring ban in the USA would be as effective as enforcement of Prohibition was, in my opinion.

That’s solely because in the 2000 election, the colors for R and D were “flipped” from what they had often been in previous elections… and, it was apparently the first time that the left actively took their hatred for entire regions of the US (beyond just the South, which was easier to pigeonhole) into the mainstream.

Republicans didn’t get to choose the color. Just like letting Democrat activists moderate the debates, letting the color red be used is utter stupidity. It is a very subtle yet deliberate physiological attack by the media to influence people’s views.

AR-15 springs are typically 16-gage high-carbon wire, a material so common as to be unbannable. Making springs is easy. Heck, I used to make and oxy-acetylene weld many thousands of precision steel links to make chain mail. One could probably make several hundred magazine springs a day in a garage with nothing but a mandrel, a torch, and bucket of water, and an oven.

The red and blue states were opposite the whole time I was growing up, and I think only reveresed sometime during the Clinton era or thereabouts. I suspect that Democrats flipped them after someone pointed out that everyone in the military is taught that blue means us and red means the enemy, and that this might be a subtle psychological advantage to Republican.